Champions League: Ranking the 10 Most Likely Goalscorers in Man Utd vs Barcelona
A goal in the final of the Champions League ensures that your name is enshrined in football folklore, the hero of an expectant crowd.
The 2011 Champions League final will be no different. It will provide a platform from which names and reputations will be made and broken. The centrepiece of the football calendar, is the summit of footballing excellence, a goal, and you are catapulted into the pantheons of the greats.
So now, with under two weeks to go until the headline event, here is a run-down of the 10 most likely players from Manchester United and Barcelona to find their way onto the score sheet and into the fans hearts.
10: Dani Alves: FC Barcelona
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Essentially Dani Alves is a right-back, but to claim he is such is a loosely expressed term.
What with his patented forays up the pitch, and rather patchy resilience to actual defending his is almost a right midfielder.
If anyone needed proof of Alves ability to score on the big occasion, watch his goal in the second leg against Shakhtar this season, where, after a sumptuous Iniesta ball, Alves boasts a touch a striker would be proud of before emphatically converting.
De ja vu, Wembley goal No. 2?
9) Luis Antonio Valencia: Manchester United
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The return of Luis Antonio Valencia has coincided with the return of form of what was a stuttering Manchester United side following losses to Chelsea and Liverpool.
Like Iniesta Valencia is more known for his creating than finishing, but as a nail-on to start the final, and with a fair few United goals to his name in his two seasons with the club, Valencia could well be the one for the big occasion.
8) Andres Iniesta: FC Barcelona
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Barcelona’s attacking three, fed by the unparalleled support and incision of what is undoubtedly the worlds best midfield, have an iron grip over the teams goals output.
This being said, a number of other players in the Spanish Champions elect’s ranks have the propensity, on occasions to weigh in with crucial goals.
Iniesta is quite probably, with seven league goals this term, Barca’s most apparent goal threat, apart from their strikers.
Although a player that is more known for his creating than executing, Iniesta, given the opportunity could well add to his tally at Wembley.
7) Luis Nani: Manchester United
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Another Man United player that, part of me cannot really see starting the game.
Nani’s inclination to defend is not as strong as positional rivals such as Park and Giggs, but what he lacks in defensive frailties, he more than makes up with in flair and spectacular goals.
If Nani is chosen by Sir Alex to start the match, I feel he would move a few places up this list, possibly to just above Pedro, but while his inclusion is in the balance I feel that seventh is apt.
6) Dimitar Berbatov: Manchester United
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It may seem strange to see the leagues top goal-scorer as the sixth-most likely scorer in the Champions League final, but my logic behind it is sound.
Basically I cannot envisage the situation in which Berbatov will start the game, and off the bench the Bulgarian’s impact is quite often negligible.
Top goal-scorers cannot, of course, be discounted though and if Dimitar refines some of the bite and panache he has been missing in recent appearances, he could finally have the stage to put the doubts over his ability and temperament firmly to bed.
5) Pedro Rodriguez: FC Barcelona
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The third member in FC Barcelona’s attacking triumvirate, and the least decorated of the three.
However, that being said, ignore Pedro’s threat at your peril, as Real Madrid found out in the second leg of their semi-final tie as the young Spaniard scored the decisive equaliser on the night that eased nervy Catalan hearts.
Normally operating from the right of Barcelona’s attacking three, the onus for negating Pedro’s threat will, most likely come down to the combination of Patrice Evra and Ryan Giggs.
With this being said, I cannot see Pedro’s threat being as exacerbated as it has in numerous Liga BBVA matches this season.
All the same he is most certainly a threat that Sir Alex will make provisions to counter.
4) Wayne Rooney: Manchester United
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The most obvious creative outlet for Manchester United.
After a slow start to the season, following revelations into his private life and a chronic loss of form, to quote Eminem, the real Wayne Rooney has stood up.
In my opinion, though, Hernandez’s goal threat, especially in a match like this is slightly more exacerbated than Hernandez’s, as Barca’s attacking play will more than likely cause Rooney to drift further back in support and desire of the ball.
That being said, in and around the goal, and with the repertoire Rooney possesses, his is one of the more likely names to be adorning the Wembley score-sheet.
3) David Villa: FC Barcelona
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In almost every other team in the world Villa would be the star turn, at Barcelona he is simply a luminary in the supporting cast, such is ringmaster Messi’s domination over the Catalan proceedings.
David Villa was, before his summer move to Barca, the poster boy of the adoring Mestalla crowd, he was top goal-scorer at the European championships, joint top goal-scorer at the World Cup: Oh he is a goal threat alright.
If, with their predilection to tightly mark Messi, United succeed in restricting the small wonder’s influence on the final, expect big from David Villa on one of his patented forays in from the wing.
2) Javier "Chicarito" Hernandez: Manchester United
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To me Hernandez represents Manchester United’s most palpable goal threat.
Playing, as he does, in the role as furthest man forward Hernadez’s play utilises the excellent wing-play his team possesses.
With superb movement both on and off the ball, the young Mexican has been a revelation in his first season in major football competition (no disrespect intended for Guadalajara or the Mexican league in general), as his stock has rocketed.
Nowhere is there a more appropriate setting for the young Hernandez to rubber seal; his emergence as one of the worlds most exciting prospects than on the Wembley turf, on May 28th.
I, for one, would not be in the slightest bit surprised if he does just that.
1) Lionel Messi: FC Barcelona
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Was it really ever going to be anyone else?
The figures of the man/boy with the world at his feet, for this season are quite staggering; 52 gaols in 54 competitive game for his club is almost unfathomable.
His second goal against Real Madrid in the first leg of the semi-final was, to me, the measure of his importance to this Barcelona team.
While nursing a precarious one goal lead going into the second leg, whilst dominating possession a la usual, the spark of penetration.
In one moment of genius in which he passed four Madrid defenders as if they were merely obstacles to slight inconsequence, and placed the ball under the sprawling Iker Casillas, Messi all but ended the match as a consequence.
The stoic Manchester United rearguard will have to hold up to the rampant Messi again in the final, of that there is no doubt.
